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View Poll Results: Does German 'Capturerd' Allied Tanks effective during the war?

Beutepanzers : Items Captured By the German Military

If you have any pictures or information on Captured Items of the German Military please post it here.
Here is a captured Sherman British tank captured by the German Military.

If you have any more information please post here. It would be very interesting! Sorry I could not post more.

Last edited by GermanSoldier; 03-11-2007 at 01:17 PM.
Reason: edit

Good Conduct Medal
"The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen."
General Franz Halder-Army Chief of Staff-August 1941

Good Conduct Medal
"The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen."
General Franz Halder-Army Chief of Staff-August 1941

Good Conduct Medal
"The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen."
General Franz Halder-Army Chief of Staff-August 1941

Regarding the captured armored veicles. I read that they normally had excessive markings on them. This is becasue they were under constant danger not only from the enemy fire but were prone to atract frendly fire, especialy air strikes, thus crosses all over, also on top of the turret.
It was reported, that the russian captures Panters were atracting some thing like 3 times more fire from german troops compared to other russian tanks on the battlefield.

Beutepanzers

Okay. These are the German Version of captured Allied Tanks. But, I don't think they are effective against the Allied Armor Divisions. Some of them were upgunned, reinforced their armors, their engines have been changed or even the tracks.

M3 'German Stuart' Light Tank

M4 'German Sherman 76mm' Medium Tank

M4 'German Sherman 75mm' Medium Tank

Mark III 'German Valentine' Infantry Tank

Mark IV 'German Churchill' Infantry Tank (with Cromwell Turret)

Regards, your friendly neighborhood, Jungleguerilla...

Being a Hero is really hard to say but easy to do. But being a Soldier less than a Hero is easy to say but hard to do.It's a full crap! Nobody asks Soldiers to be Heroes! -Lt.Col.Chesty Puller

Re: Beutepanzers

You really need to start less threads and search through the forums more. The poll-topic is overly broad and silly and adds little to the discussion. All nations used their enemies equipment as a short term military necessity or even as a means to field superior equipment to his own. And beutepanzers were less effective than what? German tanks that didn't exist? What was their alternative? It's not as if the Heer decided to not produce a Panther so they could field a Stuart. And a captured Sherman in the Firefly or Easy-Eight configuration was more than effective enough against Allied armor, and the Heer fielded whole squadrons of T-34s that are considered to be one of the best overall tanks in history...

Re: Beutepanzers

Originally Posted by jungleguerilla

Okay. These are the German Version of captured Allied Tanks. But, I don't think they are effective against the Allied Armor Divisions. Some of them were upgunned, reinforced their armors, their engines have been changed or even the tracks.

Wouldn't logic dictate that a captured Allied tank used against the same model tank in Allied hands would be equally effective as the Allied tank, assuming both crews were equally capable?

And if they're upgunned with heavier armour, surely they have the advantage?

Re: Beutepanzers

And we're assuming that captured tanks used by the Wehrmacht were merely used against Allied tanks. In fact, they were used for ancillary roles such as reconnaissance, internal security (French-made tanks for instance), and even obsolete battlefield tanks could still be useful as infantry support weapons against enemy infantry and positions. This freed up more modern German designs for use as tank killers and the beutepanzers could augment them in roles, where tanks such as Mark IV, would have been wasted..

Re: Beutepanzers

And lets not forget, there were Allied units using captured German and Italian equipment.
Classic example is 2 allied armoured regiments equipped with M13/41's in the Western desert.

Nor, in fairness, can it be said that the German employment of Beutepanzers in WW2 was driven/impelled by the same ethic that had fueled it in WW1.
By WW2, Germany pretty much understood Panzers and the employment thereof.
It was the Allies who had to catch up, "improve their game" so to speak. Eventually, they did so, and once the US and Russian production of vehicles got into full stride, the writing was on the wall for both Germany and Japan.

{{So far, I'm trying hard to be tolerant of our new member.
I feel he genuinely seeks to learn about the period this forum references.
However: I do admit, my back is (like the angry cat) arching a little, and the claws are wanting to extend.....
Patience is at times not one of my greater virtues......
it is perhaps fortunate I'm not a Moderator.}}